Twitter is reportedly planning to launch a standalone direct-messaging application to rival popular apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat.

The move is part of a broader revamp of Twitter's direct-messaging product, which also includes the addition of a new setting that allows users to send and receive direct messages from others without needing to mutually follow one another, according to AllThingsD.

Twitter has reportedly been internally testing this setting for weeks, and began rolling it out to the public in a limited capacity earlier this week.

Private messaging has never been Twitter's primary focus, and at one stage the company considered killing direct messaging off altogether. However, the rapid increase in popularity of personal-messaging apps like WhatsApp, Line and KakaoTalk has forced social media companies to re-evaluate their messaging capabilities.

KakaoTalk was singled out as a particular threat in Twitter’s S-1 IPO documentation, filed earlier this month. Twitter also reportedly ran a survey to find out the extent to which people are using Snapchat to engage with others.

It is unclear what form Twitter's standalone direct messaging app could take, but it is likely that it will target mobile users. Facebook already offers a standalone application called Messenger for iOS and Android, which fuses Facebook's private messaging function with technology from Beluga, a startup it bought back in 2011.In April this year, analysts Informa revealed that messaging applications have overtaken text messages for the first time, with 19 billion chat messages sent every day via applications, compared to 17.6 billion texts.

Twitter is currently preparing to float on the New York Stock Exchange on November 14. The social media business filed to make its initial public offering last month, around 18 months after Facebook made its disastrous stock market debut.

In an amended IPO filing on Tuesday, the eight-year-old company reported a 37 per cent rise in users to 231.7m and a doubling in revenues to $168.6m in the quarter to the end of September – mostly from mobiles.

However, net losses widened to $64.6m from $21.6m a year earlier, partly driven by a 158 per cent surge in sales and marketing spending to push its advertising platform. The company lost $80m (£50m) in 2012 and $69.3m in the first half of 2013.

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